Dreamscape
by save.me.or.break.me
Summary: Eli has dreams of Cal and how it would feel if he loved him, but he knows that it's all just one messed up dreamscape; muddled thoughts and feelings that will never see fruition.


Just a little bittersweet longing in the form of a dream. Cal/Eli.

Disclaimer: I own no characters here. They belong to the makers of Lie To Me. No suing, I beg of you

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He was like liquid, silent and smart and beautiful. His brown-green eyes softly focused on his research videos, fingers twirling and pulling at the wires of his headphones. If I were those wires, oh. I can feel him now, all around me. Twisting me, holding me. The rives and calluses of his fingers, loving me.

He stops his twirling to turn a page in his worn out notebook, taking in a deep breath of boredom. I love it when he does that. When I can watch his chest rise from its soft rhythm and take the breath that I would so gladly give to him. You hear that? I would give my life if it could give you yours, but that's a foolish thought.

Standing from my seat and walking over to him, I pretend to fall into his lap, pretend to feel his arms circle my waist as he smiles, setting aside the work he was growing tired of anyways. Pretend, it's child's play. Pretend.

And as his fingers entwine with mine, and I lean back against his chest, he vanishes.

Another dream and another night not quite wasted.

When did I first start to dream about him? Oh, I don't know. It could have been days ago, months ago, even. The time seems so muddled now that I don't see the point in trying to track it down. I've simply stopped caring about how long he's been there, in my head at night.

I know that I will forget half of the things that happen to me, half of the Christmas mornings I've woken up and gone down to the living room for gifts and candy. Half of the birthdays, and quizzes, and friends, and things that are important to me now, but there is one day that I will carry with me until the moment I lapse into a dreamless sleep and float along the planes unconscious nothingness. One small, plotted point on this evanescent timeline labeled "Me." The day I earned my humanity. The day I gave it away. The day I lost any and all will to be alive.

Christmas, it must have been. Or a funeral. My family wouldn't have forced themselves together so crowdedly otherwise, cramming themselves into someone's brightly colored, cigarette smoke living room. I remember that it was freezing, that I was sad. That he was there, that he was with me in my head.

In my dream, I was still in bed at two in the afternoon, the duvet heaped on the floor in a soft floral pile. I didn't reach for it, hold it to cover myself from the chilling air while I slept. My arm just lolled over the side of the bed, left there from the awkward and thoroughly uncomfortable position I had woken up to. I simply could not move. Not my arms, not my legs. Not my fingers that tingled as the blood flowed to them, tracing the thin wires of tissues with my life, trapped there as gravity held it to my fingertips. It could not flow back, and so my heart was left empty. Or at least it felt like it.

I almost jumped when I felt his fingers graze my ankle, warming them. Making me want to pull him to me and soak it all in, never feel cold again, but I just couldn't bring myself to move, to blink. Was I breathing?

"It's not as bad as you think it is."

"How would you know that? How would you know how bad I think it is?"

"Because," he leaned over, splaying himself on the cold sheets and laying his arm over my stomach. Suddenly, the warmth he had touched me with now surrounded me, overwhelmed me, completed me for a while.

"Because I'm you."

For some reason, that statement didn't seem at all odd or unreasonable at the time. In fact it made perfect sense. So much sense that I cried. I felt my throat clench in protest as hot tears welled in the corners of my eyes. My breathing hitched and shook and felt mechanized, because I hadn't the sense enough to do it on my own. You didn't say anything more, you were just with me, like a stuffed animal or a favorite blanket, but so much more than that. You were not a fact, not a fixed point in my life. You were mutable, an enigmatic anomaly that was there when blankets and stuffed animals just weren't enough to keep me alive, to keep me.

After that first, innocent moment of overwhelming, unashamed dependence, I almost forgot you. I had woken up somewhere between being held by you, and you whispering that it was okay. That being human wasn't really so bad. That it could be okay, if I just let myself be.

The next time I saw you, two months had gone by. I dreamed that you were leaning on my shoulder in the bathroom mirror. It didn't seem strange, or frightening, or crazy. I just continued brushing my teeth, occasionally glancing at you and your gleaming brown eyes, a soft almost-smile stretching the corners of your mouth.

The next time I saw you was a week after that, just sitting on my bed, glancing out of the dirtied window pane that I hadn't bothered to clean in months. You were stroking my pink bunny Mom had given me for my birthday. You turned and smiled at me.

"Welcome home."

"Yes, I'm home." It was the most wonderful strawberry-ice-cream-sunny-summer-breeze moment I'd ever experienced. To have you there, waiting for me. Greeting me. I had someone to come home to. I had someone.

He was like liquid: silent, smart, and beautiful. His brown-green eyes softly focused on the lines in the palm of my hands, fingers tracing the veins up and down, up and down. I love it when he does that. Those silly little romance novel moves that make everything seem slower, sweeter. I could spend forever in moments like these, moments with someone.

He stops his tracing and kisses my neck and tells me he loves me. I say nothing back, only lean against his shoulder and push my face against his; savoring the time he's with me. Wondering it would be any different if he were really with me. I would die if it meant he could breathe with me for some time, anytime.

He moves himself behind me on the bed, reaches forward, grasps my hands, and as his fingers entwine with mine, and I lean back against his chest, he vanishes.


End file.
